25 Responses to ACTION ITEM! POLL ALERT! Ultrasound before abortion.

If you want any kind of surgery or medical procedure done, usually the doctor has to sit down, explain the whole thing, show you models, get your informed consent on a zillion zillion forms, and then offer to let you watch the surgery on the ultrasound monitor or a little TV screen.

Funny how, with abortion, it suddenly becomes okay to tell the patient as little as possible. Why, it’s like they believe it’s not just a surgical operation that removes annoying bits of parasitic tissue!

A huge step forward in protecting the God given rights of women IMO! Women deserve to be fully informed and an ultrasound is barely even the minimum they deserve in the way of details BEFORE they make such an irrevocable decision.

And that is even if you don’t believe abortion to be murder– as I do!

I voted yes because even women of no faith at all who firmly believe the lies that an abortion does not kill a baby deserve to be properly informed and an ultrasound is part of that information.

Voted! Funny how those pushing “right to choose” balk at the idea of people making an informed decision.

Even those who would treat pregnancy as a disease should have the best interests in the “patient” in mind. Those who would change their minds at the ultrasound are arguably those who, even without the ultrasound, would be likelier to be tormented with psychological issues following their abortion for the rest of their lives. They are not “good candidates” for the “procedure,” just as candidates for some other surgeries are evaluated.

Except, it’s not about the the woman. One gets the distinct impression that it is about abortion for abortion’s sake. It is all but a “sacrament” of feminism.

I don’t disagree, but I also don’t think it’s an unfair or inaccurate characterization. It’s force, just not of the directly physical kind, just as the Administration’s mandate is force, though not of a directly physical kind. The threat of physical force lurks distantly behind any sort of government mandate, of course, which is why we sometimes use it to such great rhetorical effect. But the knife cuts both ways. In many ways, “mere” compulsion is worse than physical force, because it compels a person to engage in acts, apparently of his own will, that he does not believe.

If a government official were to grab a Catholic doctor by the hand and literally force him to perform an abortion, that would at least leave it clear where the doctor stood. But ah, if he can be compelled to betray God’s law out of fear–then he does violence to the doctor’s own soul, where mere physical force cannot easily go. He also diminishes Catholicism’s witness and claim to the Truth.

So in a sense, I can see where the abortion industry is coming from on this. But not completely, for, in the end, all that the abortionist is being made to do is to acknowledge observable reality. He is not being made to lie, or even to say something he does not know to be true. At worst, he is being compelled to acknowledge the truth and maybe to let his conscience lay bare a little bit–and that, deep down, is what the abortion lobby really fears.

Doctors being forced to use ultrasound here is extremely different from Obama forcing Catholic doctors to agree with contraception. The pro-abortion doctors do not have any real ideological argument or belief against the use of ultrasound technology. In fact, do they not use it to monitor and perform abortions?

What argument can they make against mothers seeing an image of it? All they’re seeing is factual reality. They have a right to know what is going on. And they have a right to have all information provided to them to make a ‘choice.’

If they argue that this would be undue emotional pressure for the mother to not choose abortion… then this argument can also work against them for exactly the same reasons that emotional pressure may likewise be pushing a mother to abort her child.

The only reasons they would then oppose this is that:
1) They don’t really stand for women’s choices nor educataing women. This is a smokescreen. They are liars.
2) They only want to force their position and what is beneficial for them on women in order to make money.
3) They themselves want to ignore reality and willfully remain ignorant about what their consciences are telling them, that what they are doing is unnecessary murder and only harms humanity. And they reinforce this by supporting and fighting against policies that will help foster general support for their beliefs and thus ease their consciences and continue to shelter them from reality by believing they are protected by popular belief and opinion rather than factual truth.
4) They do it to protect themselves from the potential wrath of the masses if ever the masses were to wake up and see abortion for the grave crime it truly is. Thus it is necessary to keep the masses as ignorant as possible.
5) All of the above.

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"We as Catholics have not properly combated (the culture) because we have not been taught our Catholic Faith, especially in the depth needed to address these grave evils of our time. This is a failure of catechesis both of children and young people that has been going on for fifty years. It is being addressed, but it needs much more radical attention... What has also contributed greatly to the situation is an exaltation of the virtue of tolerance which is falsely seen as the virtue which governs all other virtues. In other words, we should tolerate other people in their immoral actions to the extent that we seem also to accept the moral wrong. Tolerance is a virtue, but it is certainly not the principal virtue; the principal virtue is charity... Charity means speaking the truth. I have encountered it (not speaking the truth) many times myself as a priest and bishop. It is something we simply need to address. There is far too much silence — people do not want to talk about it because the topic is not 'politically correct.' But we cannot be silent any longer."

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"In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. ... If all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians." CDF 2003

One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting.
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The more vigorously the primacy was displayed, the more the question came up about the extent and and limits of [papal] authority, which of course, as such, had never been considered. After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith. … The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition.

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"Latin is a precise, essential language. It will be abandoned, not because it is unsuitable for the new requirements of progress, but because the new men will not be suitable for it. When the age of demagogues and charlatans begins, a language like Latin will no longer be useful, and any oaf will be able to give a speech in public and talk in such a way that he will not be kicked off the stage. The secret to this will consist in the fact that, by making use of words that are general, elusive, and sound good, he will be able to speak for an hour without saying anything. With Latin, this is impossible."

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“The legalization of the termination of pregnancy is none other than the authorization given to an adult, with the approval of an established law, to take the lives of children yet unborn and thus incapable of defending themselves. It is difficult to imagine a more unjust situation, and it is very difficult to speak of obsession in a matter such as this, where we are dealing with a fundamental imperative of every good conscience — the defense of the right to life of an innocent and defenseless human being.”

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"One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting."

- C.S. Lewis

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